From Melayu Patani to Thai Muslim: the spectre of ethnic identity in southern Thailand

This paper is a study of how the people at the centre of the violent conflict in Thailand's southern border provinces have been represented, with particular reference to the period from the Second World War to the present. It provides a brief historical background to a number of discourses of identity regarding the people in the region. It focuses on the struggle between competing discourses of Thai national identity, Malay ethnic identity, Muslim identity, and a more localized identity centred on the memory of the former sultanate of Patani and its associated linguistic and cultural traditions